The Circle Palette

The general purpose of The Circle Palette is to provide a simple visual analogy for your chords and a basic interface for making quick changes to chords - especially during playback. Using the Circle Palette you should find almost everything you need to experiment with movement and chord extensions during the composition process.

Circle Highlighting

Notes in the Current Scale	Notes not in the Current Scale
Notes in the Current Chord	The Current Root

Cursors

There are two wedge-shaped "cursors" that appear in The Circle. You cannot directly move these cursors from within the Circle Palette -- they are provided merely for a quick reference.

• The Scale Cursor here corresponds to the Scale Cursor in the Scale Palette. This is the note we call the Current Tone.
  
  
• The Fret Cursor here corresponds to the Fret Cursor in the Guitar Palette.

Circle Palette Gadgets

• Step Size Button
  The notes in the circle can be arranged in two ways:

  Perfect Fifths

  Half steps.

   

• The Circle
  Yes, The Circle is itself a big fat gadget you can click upon.

  Click a wedge to toggle a note in the Current Chord. Hold down the button and drag for a cumulative effect.

  Command-drag to rotate the circle. The effect will appear different depending on the status of the Stop / Go Button described below. Notice that rotating the circle in this way doesn't affect the notes in the chord, merely the context.

   

• ABC / 123 Button
  Some folks are letter folks; other folks are number folks. Choose here.

  Notes appear on the circle as letter names.

  Notes appear as functions of the Current Chord. This way you can easily locate - say - the Major 7th note during an improvisation and throw it into the fray.

• Stop / Go Button
  The Stop / Go Button determines how the Circle relates to the Current Key. Generally this refers to what happens when you move the Key Cursor around in the Scale Palette, but the relationship goes both ways since you can also rotate the Circle with command-drag.

  Notes remain fixed. The same note will stay in the 12-o-clock position no matter what the Current Key is. If you are displaying numbers (See ABC / 123 Above) then they will change as the Current Root changes, because notes take on different roles in different keys. When you rotate the circle using command-drag the Key Cursor remains in the same row. As a result the scale moves with the notes, keeping them aligned as you rotate. Basically, by setting this button to the STOP position you are guaranteed to always find the same notes in the same positions.

  Notes move around so that the Current Key is always shown in the 12-o-clock position. This keeps the blue scale highlighting in a fixed position but allows notes to appear in different positions. When you rotate the Circle using command-drag the Scale Cursor moves to whatever key is in the 12-o-clock position. This insures that the blue scale highlighting remains in the same position.

   

• Transpose Up
  Transpose Down

  Click these arrows to transpose your chord to a new key. The default distance is a Perfect 4th, so as you observe the Scale Palette you'll see the Scale Cursor moving in a predictable manner. Different modifier keys change the distance by which the chord is transposed.

  NONE	Perfect Fourths
  COMMAND	Major Thirds
  COMMAND-OPTION	Minor Thirds
  OPTION	Major Seconds (Whole steps)
  SHIFT	Minor Seconds (1/2 steps)

   

• Harmonize Up <H>
  Harmonize Down <G>
  The Harmonize arrows work in conjunction with the Harmony Buttons to move the chord through the harmonies of the Current Keyscale. By default these arrows do the same thing as the FretStuff >> Next Harmony and Previous Harmony menu items ( H and G keys ).

  NONE	1 Step (Seconds or Minor 3rds)
  COMMAND	2 Steps (Thirds or Fourths)
  OPTION	3 Steps (Fourths)
  SHIFT	4 Steps (Fifths)

Since the scale only has 7 notes 3 steps forward is the same as four steps back and vice versa.

 

• Harmony Buttons
  These seven buttons represent the seven degrees of the Current Keyscale. Click on these to immediately change to any harmony of the Current Chord.

  During playback you can create wonderfully dynamic improvisations by clicking around on the Harmony Buttons, the Transpose Arrows, and the Harmony Arrows.

   

• Feedback Button
  Turn this gadget on to hear your chord each time you modify it with the Transpose / Harmony Arrows and the Harmony Buttons. The chord will be struck if there is no bracket setting. The chord will be strummed if there is a bracket setting. If Play is turned on then no feedback is needed since your chord is already playing in the Sequencer.

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